Swedish firms among world's top brands

Two Swedish brands are among the world’s most valuable brands.

It will take more than a problem with antenna reception on the iPhone 4 to affect Apple's brand, business magazine Forbes wrote as it ranked Apple as the world’s most valuable brand with an estimated value of 57.4 billion dollars.

Microsoft was ranked as number 2, followed by Coca-Cola, IBM and Google.

Tech brands made a big showing on this with 30 percent of the top 50 brands, including four of the first five places in the rankings.

Two Swedish brands managed to make it to the prestigious list.

Furniture and home decor retailer Ikea came in at number 37 with an estimated value of 11.2 billion dollar.The magazine pointed out that "Ikea printed 199 million catalogs in 27 languages in 2009".

Hennes & Mauritz, the world's third-largest fashion chain by revenue, made it to number 47 with an value of 9.1 billion dollar.

"Even with the recession, H&M has posted double-digit sales growth each of the past six years", Forbes said.

Nokia, the world's biggest mobile phone maker, was valued to 27.4 billion dollar, placing the Finnish firm at number 10.